road rage under fire

“Astoningshingly barbaric behavior.”

This is how Conrado de Quiros describes Pinoy motorists’ behavior in his There’s The Rub column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I agree with him completely.

Steering around Metro Manila’s roads is not for the lily-livered, gutless motorist. You have to contend with motorcycle drivers who take advantage of any and all space available just to race past you. Many of them don’t even have a decent helmet on, that is if you see them wearing one.

And jeepney drivers, many of whom don’t seem to respect any traffic rule; they stop abruptly in front of you to load and unload passengers, even right in the middle of the street.

And bus drivers who think that the mere mammoth size of their vehicle grants them the license to bully smaller vehicles to give way.

And then there are sluggards on highways whose slowness compels me to shout “Accelarate! You m*#f*#r! Accelerate!”

I admit: there are episodes when I fantasize about killing erring drivers on the road by racing beside them, rolling down my window, bringing out my Metal Storm, and literally storming them with more than a million bullet, not until they die, but until I am fully satisfied.

Call it overkill, but yeah, I sometimes like the thought of ruthless killing on the spot, poor mortals dying right before my eyes even before they could beg for mercy, their blood and brains staining streets and street signs — a permanent reminder that under my fantasy game, inconsiderate drivers with subnormal intelligence are prohibited from being alive. 

Blame my dad for my road rage, which is, by the way, still comparably moderate by Pinoy standards. I grew up seeing my dad as an aggresive-defensive driver. You cut him and he’s going to race past you to do the same to you, and more — he slows down in front of you so you can’t speed up. If you’re a turtle who gets in his way, he’ll honk like a madman until your annoyance drives you to pick up speed.

He even used to have a bullhorn set up in his Datsun pick-up to angrily censure motorists into driving properly. I remember being embarrassed whenever he speaks into the microphone and his loud voice shocking motorists and pedestrians, as if an angry god from hell spoke down on them. I was really happy he sold his Datsun years back, and with it the bullhorn and all the embarrassing moments that it brought me.

Today my dad has better control of his road rage, and while he has remained faithful to traffic rules, I’ve become quite the opposite. For two consecutive years, I drove his car from my office in Mandaluyong to my graduate classes in Katipunan on rush hour Fridays when the car isn’t allowed under government’s coding scheme , hiding from traffic enforcers’ view by driving beside buses along EDSA or racing up beside SUVs. Now I’m already doing my thesis (well, trying to do it hahaha) and not once was I apprehended.

And take this: for almost two years now, I’ve been driving around with an expired license. I forgot to renew my license before my birthday last year; now I’m too lazy to renew it (Err,uhm, I promised myself I’ll renew it before the year ends.) And yeah, I’m proud to say that I’ve never been apprehended. Haha!

                                        

So count me in, De Quiros. I’m one of your barbarians on the road